Writing

Writ­ing about writing.

Writing Retreat 2026, days 3–5

Posted on by Patrick
Concentric star trails

Let’s see here:

Wednesday

Wednes­day was rainy and cool. I did some edit­ing on the paper print­out of There’s Noth­ing Good at the Top, and fin­ished read­ing Julian Com­stock by Robert Charles Wil­son and start­ed Fear­less Jones by Wal­ter Mosley. I also dis­cov­ered that Far­go is avail­able to me on the TV, and so I watched the first few episodes of sea­son 1.

Thursday

Thurs­day was a bet­ter day; the sun came out and the tem­per­a­ture cracked the mid-teens. I wore shorts when I walked over to Poor Michael’s book empo­ri­um, where I had a mocha and picked up some books for a friend (I have enough books of my own, thanks). Back at the house I entered my edits from the paper man­u­script into my doc­u­ment, and made a few more updates. I still need to add a few scenes and update a few dream sequences, I think; make a few things more explic­it. The first draft is you telling your­self the sto­ry[1]As Sir Ter­ry Pratch­ett put it., but by the time it’s a sec­ond draft (which is what I’m work­ing on) it should be ready for oth­ers to read it too.

The sky was still clear after the sun went down, and it’s quite dark ’round these parts, so I set up my cam­eras in the yard, one fac­ing north and one point­ing pret­ty much straight up. The north-fac­ing one got about 2½ hours worth of 5‑second expo­sures for star trails (above); the oth­er one snapped a bunch of 30-sec­ond expo­sures of the Milky Way. I made time-lapse videos from both sets of photos.

The Milky Way (and the International Space Station)
The Milky Way

Friday

That actu­al­ly bled into Fri­day; all the pho­tos were tak­en before I went to bed at about 1am, but all the pro­cess­ing hap­pened today. I’ve also read some more, and I plowed through all of sea­son 1 of Far­go too, which told a taut story.

And now I’m going to have some sup­per, and then work some more on my edit­ing. Tomor­row I have to be up ear­ly, so it’s prob­a­bly for the best that it’s cloudy and rainy—I’ll be less tempt­ed to try and get more night­time photos.

Series: Writing Retreat 2026

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2026, day 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2026, days 3–5.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 As Sir Ter­ry Pratch­ett put it.

Writing Retreat 2026, day 2

Posted on by Patrick
Panoramic view of the Milky Way at Spruces

Yes­ter­day I chopped words from a 3350-word sto­ry till it was under 2500 words. I read it over today, and it’s still got the heart of the sto­ry in it. I’ll give it anoth­er look in a few days and see if I’ve missed anything.

Today I read about a dozen chap­ters in Julian Com­stock by Robert Charles Wil­son. I’m into the final sec­tion and I’m still not sure how this is going to end.

I also con­tin­ued edit­ing the paper man­u­script of There’s Noth­ing Good at the Top. There are a num­ber of things I need to add in there, and the list is grow­ing. (It’s fine; as they say, writ­ing’s re-writing.)

After sup­per I head­ed to Wasagam­ing to snap a short time­lapse of the sunset.

I also got a panora­ma of the sun­set sky.

panoramic view of the sunset at Wasagaming

After that, I con­tin­ued on to Spruces, where the clouds stayed away from the shots I want­ed of the Milky Way.

The Milky Way at Spruces
5-image stack of the Milky Way

Back at the house, I set up for some quick star trails (and got a bonus shot of the Big Dipper).

Star trails from the front porch of the house
The Big Dipper from the front porch

And now it’s just past mid­night, and I’m going to go to bed. (That’s one thing about doing this retreat in mid-Sep­tem­ber rather than July or August; I don’t have to stay up till 1 am to get prop­er­ly dark skies.)

Update: It appears that, if I’d stayed up anoth­er hour or two, I might have caught some hori­zon-hug­ging auro­ra last night. Ah well, so it goes.

Series: Writing Retreat 2026

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2026, day 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2026, days 3–5.

Writing Retreat 2026, Day 1

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad

It’s the Mon­day after my 29th wed­ding anniver­sary and I’m in a stranger’s house for a week. It’s 9°C[1]For the Fahren­heit folks: that ain’t warm. and rainy. I’m unpacked and I’ve had a snack and I’m con­tem­plat­ing dri­ving into the park to see if the gela­to place is open on Mondays.

I don’t have my bike with me this year—still nurs­ing my heal­ing wrist[2]I broke it in ear­ly June, in case you missed it.—but I’ve got my lap­top, my cam­eras and tripods, and a print­ed first draft of a novella.

Goals

Here’s what I’d like to accom­plish this week:

  • Fin­ish the first pass of edit­ing There’s Noth­ing Good at the Top
  • Re-read Dried Flow­ers
  • See if I can trim about 1,000 words out of a 3,300–word sto­ry so I can send it in to the CBC Fic­tion contest
  • Walk a few kilo­me­tres every day
  • Get some Milky Way pho­tos (and auro­ra if the sun and the clouds cooperate)
  • Read at least a cou­ple of the books I brought along
  • Relax and enjoy myself

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 For the Fahren­heit folks: that ain’t warm.
↑2 I broke it in ear­ly June, in case you missed it.

Did Not Finish

Posted on by Patrick
The word "nope" on a red background

I love to read, but I don’t have a prob­lem aban­don­ing a book if it’s not doing it for me.

I found a book in the library’s sci­ence fic­tion sec­tion, a title I’d nev­er heard of by an author I’d nev­er heard of. I checked out the first cou­ple pages, I read the author’s bio—apparently the author’s “name” was a nom de plume for an award-win­ning writer of thrillers, try­ing their hand at SF. OK, I thought, I’ll try it. It’s the library, it’s not cost­ing me anything.

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Did Not Fin­ish” →

Hashtag AmWriting

Posted on by Patrick
Tarot card: THE TOWER

It appears that my cur­rent work-in-progress (title pend­ing; cur­rent work­ing title is “How Quick­ly We For­get”) came to me in a dream just over a year ago. Just for fun I took a snap­shot of the git com­mits[1]nerds gonna nerd,[2]speak­ing of nerds gonna nerd: appar­ent­ly tac in Lin­ux will spit out a text file in reverse order, the oppo­site of cat on the project, and here’s what I’ve done so far (no spoil­ers that I know of):

  • Ini­tial commit
  • First few ¶s — 2024-11-17
  • 2024-11-23 morn­ing
  • 2024-11-23 evening
  • Updates pri­or to 02-Sep-2025
  • Added a few notes for lat­er inclu­sion (or at least consideration)
  • A quick snip­pet for the moment right before the Time Jump
  • Intro: the diaries arrive; some notes
  • Start­ing to get into the whole swing of the narration
  • Added .git­ig­nore
  • Con­vert­ed all the sec­tion breaks to #, which is my pre­ferred notation
  • Tonight’s writ­ing
  • a cou­ple pos­si­ble titles
  • OK now it’s a roman à clef
  • Can’t find my face in the yearbook
  • Minor changes to the ‘I can’t find my face’ section
  • Diary entries and notes; pub­lic domain image of the tarot’s Tower
  • Added more to the first diary entry
  • Diary entry about the dis­ap­pear­ance of Hen­ry Lepin
  • lam­bent
  • First close encounter with the tower
  • More diary entries: Rhéal ascends and descends the tower
  • Added Olympics bit
  • Added Unsplash pho­to; added snip­pet about the door’s sud­den appearance
  • Quick note so I don’t for­get it
  • After Rheal came back down…
  • Added note about Oppo­si­tion­al Defi­ance Disorder
  • Added some notes; edit­ed the open­ing; intro­duced the tow­er a bit earlier
  • Light edits
  • Added text about why Mark kept a diary
  • Most­ly edit­ing the first bits
  • Start­ed on the next diary entry
  • Some minor edits
  • Some edits, a new diary entry, a few updates to the notes
  • Update: no explic­it men­tions of the tow­er in the diary entries proper
  • Some notes for the edit­ing phase
  • Start­ed on the climb of the tower
  • Added a note (‘Coda’) about how the whole thing ends
  • He’s climb­ing the stairs now
  • Removed extra ‘chap­ter’ titles, minor edits, tongue-in-cheek title suggestion

Update, Dec. 19th: a month lat­er, here’s the next batch of com­mit messages:

  • He’s still climb­ing the stairs
  • A bit more climbing
  • idea for a web­site (lat­er)
  • Reach­ing the top
  • Left a note about the mas­sive storm — make sure it’s in the diary
  • small edits, the view from the top
  • A bit more at the top
  • About to start the descent
  • Jot­ted down a cou­ple notes about ideas I had while wash­ing dishes
  • Run­ning into Rhéal on the way down; [dates]
  • Added TK to the date notes, for more easy regex search-and-replace later
  • Typo fix­es, added TK about an upcom­ing entry
  • A ‘manse’ is for cler­gy; also added the year to the ‘mod­ern’ date TKs
  • Added red-brick tex­ture; pos­si­ble cov­er image
  • More diary entries
  • Pos­si­ble title image
  • Moved the giant images to an ignored fold­er, made a small­er JPG cov­er concept
  • Fiz­zgig real­ly does­n’t like the ele­men­tary school playground
  • Very minor changes
  • Cleared off a TK (what a love­ly feeling)
  • Rhéal stays over
  • Punc­tu­a­tion changes
  • Minor edits
  • Notes on the coda; the new tow­er appears
  • Ignore the word­count file
  • Christ­mas diary entry
  • Start­ed the Thanks­giv­ing scene
  • Renamed the school after Mme. Chirac
  • Added a cou­ple notes; linked to the post about The Dream
  • The rest of the Thanks­giv­ing visit
  • [redacted]‘s fate
  • The next morning
  • Guilt over [redacted]‘s fate
  • Cor­rect­ed the spelling of L’Évêque

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 nerds gonna nerd
↑2 speak­ing of nerds gonna nerd: appar­ent­ly tac in Lin­ux will spit out a text file in reverse order, the oppo­site of cat

Writing Retreat 2025

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad

This year I’d like to:

  • Get some or all of a first draft on “What’s Done is Undone”
  • Sub­mit some­thing to Augur and/or Tales & Feathers
  • Get out in a kayak a cou­ple times[1]It looks like the weath­er might coop­er­ate.
  • Ride my bike dai­ly, even if it’s just around the cab­in area
  • Con­jure up a clear night or two for some Milky Way pho­tos or star trails
  • Read a cou­ple books
  • relaaaaaaaax

My “week” is a lit­tle trun­cat­ed this year—I’ll be here for 5½ days, roughly—but I’m plan­ning to make the most of it.

Head­er pho­to by Aaron Bur­den on Unsplash.

Series: Writing Retreat 2025

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2025; Stayed up late again; The Galaxy, August 21, 2025.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 It looks like the weath­er might cooperate.

As if in a dream

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad

I had a dream the oth­er night that I was writ­ing a sto­ry about a tow­er, a wood­en tow­er like you find in nation­al parks at scenic out­looks, but every step on it was a day. If you came down the stairs too quick­ly you’d find your­self back in time.

When I woke up I held onto it, tweaked it, made it more log­i­cal. I’ve start­ed on a first draft, because a gift in a dream is still a gift.

The tow­er had three hun­dred and six­ty-five steps, but one of them—it was nev­er clear to me which one—was about 25% high­er than the rest. My best friend Riley, who went miss­ing for a week and a half in the sum­mer­time and then showed up claim­ing he’d tripped on the way back down from the top, told me over pie and black cof­fee in the Chick­en Chef that I should always watch my step.

“On the tow­er,” I said, “or everywhere?”

“Every­where, but espe­cial­ly on the tower.”

Writing Retreat 2024: 6

Posted on by Patrick
15-image panorama of a group of 4-5 trees at the edge of a cultivated field

Anoth­er day, anoth­er bike ride. This was about 16km, and start­ed at the cof­fee shop, where I noticed I was that weirdo who wears a Slaugh­ter­house-Five T‑shirt but reads Blue­beard.[1]A Von­negut book is a Von­negut book, though.

Then I noo­dled around town for a bit, and out into the coun­try­side, where I took pho­tos of a tree…

A tree at the edge of a field; the focus is very tight on some of the branches, and everything else is weirdly blurred
ah, Lens­ba­by

…and some hydro lines.

Five hydro wires overhead, and a shot down the row of hydro poles supporting them
pow­er to the people

Then back into town, where I saw—

Look, I know some of you can’t wait for Pump­kin Spice Cable-Knit Sweater time, but I’m not ready to let go of sum­mer yet. So this lit­tle clus­ter of yel­low leaves felt par­tic­u­lar­ly cru­el, at least to me.

A cluster of yellow leaves among the summer-green leaves of a tree; the focus is very tight on the yellow leaves, and everything else is very blurred
I’m not ready

Ah well. So it goes, as Kurt Von­negut[2]Full cir­cle. would say.

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers; Storm dam­age, sun­flow­ers; Eleanor Kidd gar­dens; Scenes from today’s ride; All right, autumn can be pret­ty; Bike ride, April 10, 2021; Bike ride wildlife; Bike ride, May 16, 2021; Some flow­ers for you; Lilacs; Under the bridge; A fence, a tree, and the sky; Tur­tle Cross­ing; Ceme­tery crit­ters; On Reflec­tion; Week­end rides; Upon Reflec­tion; Deer and paparazzi; Sep­tem­ber Bike Ride; Corn & Sun­set; On Reflec­tion: Oct. 1st; Autumn Trees; A bit of graf­fi­ti; Novem­ber bike ride; Geese; Day 30; Quack quack; Skin­ny deer; Mon­day bike ride; Sat­ur­day snaps; Deer + Flow­ers; Bike Ride — July 17, 2022; The mead­ow; It seems to be autumn; Por­tal fan­ta­sy; Sla­va Ukrai­ni; Writ­ing Retreat 2023: Thurs­day bike ride; Bike Ride, May 20, 2024; Shy; Cana­da Day ride; A long ride; Cook­ie Ride redux; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End; Bike Ride, Sep. 22, 2024; Today’s Ride — Oct. 6, 2024; Souris Val­ley; Bike Ride Pho­tos — May 19, 2025; Bike ride, May 24; Art in the trees; Bike Ride Pho­tos, May 10, 2026; The neigh­bour­hood at twi­light.

Series: Writing Retreat 2024

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (1); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (2); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (3); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (4); Writ­ing Retreat (5a — Milky Way); Writ­ing Retreat (5b — Auro­ra Bore­alis); Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 A Von­negut book is a Von­negut book, though.
↑2 Full cir­cle.

Writing Retreat 2024 (4)

Posted on by Patrick
A bison standing in the enclosure, pretty much ignoring me

Yes­ter­day’s big thing was a 20-km bike ride. I took my cam­era along and snapped a cou­ple pho­tos; the bison up above and the sign­posts below, which remind­ed me of the Wat­son Lake sign­posts we saw on our trip, decades ago, to Yukon.

A collection of signs, with place names and distances ("Whitehorse 3080km" pointing roughly northwest, "Orlando 3456km" pointing roughly southeast, etc)
Inter­est­ing selec­tion of locations

I also fin­ished read­ing “The Meta­mor­pho­sis”, and it was, well, Kafkaesque[1]As you’d expect..

Today’s plan: writ­ing some sec­tions of one of my sto­ries; read­ing some Blue­beard by Kurt Von­negut (I’m about 5 chap­ters in and he’s got some inter­est­ing things to say about art; I also won­der if Michael Swan­wick lift­ed a few names[2]Like “Mintouch­i­an” and “Gre­go­ri­an”. from the book for char­ac­ters in his nov­el Sta­tions of the Tide), and prob­a­bly anoth­er bike ride, since the weath­er seems sim­i­lar to yes­ter­day. I need to inflate my bike’s rear tire, though, before I go.

And if it’s clear tonight, as the fore­cast sug­gests it should be, I think I’ll gath­er up my cam­eras and tripods and go find a big, open sky with a Milky Way or oth­er night­time delights.

Series: Writing Retreat 2024

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (1); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (2); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (3); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (4); Writ­ing Retreat (5a — Milky Way); Writ­ing Retreat (5b — Auro­ra Bore­alis); Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 As you’d expect.
↑2 Like “Mintouch­i­an” and “Gre­go­ri­an”.